None of that precludes a scenario where the padawan-wannabees do something beyond stockpiling lightsabers and holocrons.

If they must make yet another first-level adventure, can't they be fighting the equivalent of goblins or something instead of collecting the same old gimmicks? It feels overdone at this point.

I haven't read Chronicles of the Gatekeeper yet, but isn't the point of the adventure the Force power? Not the holocron? Based on my understanding, the holocron was a means to learn the Force power.

That's the kind of quest reward I would like to see more of.

Yes, I like them adding crunch (species, powers, gear) to the adventures.

None of that precludes a scenario where the padawan-wannabees do something beyond stockpiling lightsabers and holocrons.

If they must make yet another first-level adventure, can't they be fighting the equivalent of goblins or something instead of collecting the same old gimmicks? It feels overdone at this point.

That's why I mentioned in my response that I'm sure we'll get different rewards in these adventures. So far they've done a decent job of keeping things fresh in the rewards category. So far we've gotten crystals, holocrons, and new Force powers. That's not too bad as far as I'm concerned.

How do people adjust/upgrade these modules for higher level play? E.g for group of 700+ exp.

Do you just increase/upgrade the dice pools?

Depends on how the party is statted up. If everyone has been spreading themselves out across a bunch of different things, 150xp might not be too much of a difference from 0 xp; but people min/max-ing can already be in game breaking territory in 100xp.

But generally, yes, increasing or upgrading dice pools and tossing in more or harder enemies. And generally I like to put in a reason why everything would be harder (or easier if scaling an adventure down). So as a random example, instead of just randomly giving a small-time crime boss really tough grunts, bump him up into a crime lord who is in control of more things and would be more likely to have bigger muscle protecting them and more complicated security measures (increased difficulty) that would be more likely to trigger an alarm (upgrades). That way it's not like if the same model of locks were being encountered by the party, it's not just arbitrarily becoming more difficult just because they're becoming more skilled.

But you can also do well with just being a little more liberal with Setbacks. Makes things a little harder, gives PCs more opportunities to use their Setback removing talents, and it spices things up since it makes the environment have a greater impact.

How do people adjust/upgrade these modules for higher level play? E.g for group of 700+ exp.

Do you just increase/upgrade the dice pools?

For opposed challenges I'd say yes (in addition to simply making the situations more difficult by adding conditions that impose setback, as Lathrop mentioned). Compare the PC's dice pools to the opposition and adjust according to how much of a challenge you want it to be. Most starting PCs, if they aren't one-trick ponies, will have dice pools in the YGG or YYG range, and the module will likely have difficulties in the PP range. So if your players are now in the YYYG range (which might be low at 700XP+ for their areas of expertise), then you could start throwing "average" modules difficulties of PPP at them (flipping DPs regularly).

For combat challenges it's a little tougher because, IMHO, the damage output often grows more quickly than how much damage the PCs can take. It's probably safer just to up the minion group count than increase the quality of each shot, because a PC's soak might have been improved (through Talents and equipment) and can handle multiple lower powered hits better than single higher powered hits. But you'd have to adjust that for your group...maybe they just escaped from prison naked, in which case their XP is less of a factor.

Yes, I like them adding crunch (species, powers, gear) to the adventures.

Something I would really hope FFG does not do.

If the crunch is heavily related to the module then release a sister book that has the crunch or heaven forbid provide it for free.

[sarcasim]Showing good will too ones fan base has never increased product loyalty and an increase in the bottom line.[/sarcasim]

IMHO that is a marketing gimik based on corprate greed by forcing a large group of your fan base to have to buy that book in order to fully experience everything in the game.

I'm no corporate apologist, but in this case I think FFG needs to do everything possible to milk this product line. I don't want it to die like others have done. The art and quality has been top notch so far...if they start producing junk I'll happily join you in calling foul.

IMHO that is a marketing gimik based on corprate greed by forcing a large group of your fan base to have to buy that book in order to fully experience everything in the game.

I don't want it to die like others have done.

100% agree.

I just have a different idea on how to maintain and more importantly increase the currently level of success.

And I fully accept that the idea may not be any better.

IMHO that is a marketing gimik based on corprate greed by forcing a large group of your fan base to have to buy that book in order to fully experience everything in the game.

I'm no corporate apologist, but in this case I think FFG needs to do everything possible to milk this product line. I don't want it to die like others have done. The art and quality has been top notch so far...if they start producing junk I'll happily join you in calling foul.

I would agree here. From what I've gathered over the years adventure sourcebooks are viewed as risky products due to their low appeal to players. Providing crunch helps to recoup the cost of making adventures. I don't mind adventures myself but I do understand why they aren't favored by people in general. I do think for a system like this adventures are helpful for new GM's as this game is pretty big when you don't really know how to GM.

What I'm hoping they do in the future is akin to what we saw with Mass Combat. The inital rules were published in Onslaught at Arada I. Now we have much deeper rules in Lead by Example. I think if they follow a similar path, small and minor additions and then taking those ideas and developing them further in other books we'll be good. The added crunch adds value and gives time to kinda see if new mechanics are viable for other books.

I'm no corporate apologist, but in this case I think FFG needs to do everything possible to milk this product line. I don't want it to die like others have done. The art and quality has been top notch so far...if they start producing junk I'll happily join you in calling foul.

For me, the word “milk” has a different connotation in this context, and that is something I most definitely do NOT want them to do.

I want them to continue to produce QUALITY content for a long period of time for this game. To me, that is not “milking it”, that’s just plain good long-term business sense.

IMHO that is a marketing gimik based on corprate greed by forcing a large group of your fan base to have to buy that book in order to fully experience everything in the game.

I'm no corporate apologist, but in this case I think FFG needs to do everything possible to milk this product line. I don't want it to die like others have done. The art and quality has been top notch so far...if they start producing junk I'll happily join you in calling foul.

They need to add something else to the modules. I'm a fan, but I generally never bother with canned adventures, so if they're looking to get my money they need to provide something more than just an adventure.

Plenty of content potential left anyway, we are a long ways off from milking status. Got like 8 career books left, a few sourcebooks that are obvious, some more adventures, lotsa new stuff still to go.

They need to add something else to the modules. I'm a fan, but I generally never bother with canned adventures, so if they're looking to get my money they need to provide something more than just an adventure.

Plenty of content potential left anyway, we are a long ways off from milking status. Got like 8 career books left, a few sourcebooks that are obvious, some more adventures, lotsa new stuff still to go.

Very much so... but people said the same about WHFRP too, and that ended with much left undone. Granted in that case, it was due to Games Workshop killing off Warhammer Fantasy, rather than anything FFG did.

Hopefully the new movies and things like Rebels will keep Star Wars popular and a viable product for FFG for years (even if they are not to my tastes personally, I appreciate any new content is good for the genre).

And I think whafrog meant 'support' rather than 'milk'.

Mask Of the Pirate queen is the only published FFG star wars adventure appropriate to my party of bounty hunters... I suppose that I could make beyond the rim and jewel of yavin work, the problem is motivating them to take on the job.

What sort of Obligations are your party members carrying around? Tug on those.

Nothing that would motivate them for either of those adventures

My online group ran a marathon 8 hr session of a modified Mask of the Pirate Queen. We record all our games and upload them to YouTube. It is a high level campaign (the structure means everyone has different XP amounts but it ranges from 500-2000), so there are probably modifications to difficulty as well as plot things to fit it into the bigger picture.

Here is a link to part 1:

I know it only through Rowdyoctopus's actual play, and I am uninspired. Hopefully the setting is as

Whafrog mentioned, good filling for your own story. I like to re-skin most encounter based on the combination of skills and situation.

Technically, I didn't get to play in this one. Perhaps if I did, you would be more inspired

I personally wish they'd skip typical adventures and do a series of books that are broadly regional with a bunch of NPCs and modular encounters. So like an Outer Rim book with a buncha personalties and how PCs might run into them along with 15 or 20 modular encounters. Just my never ending plug for more modular encounters.

I agree with 66.6 percent of what you say. With a little digging and some legwork, between all the WEG and WotC stuff, we're pretty covered for Scum and Villiany games and Rebels vs Empire games. I want to see what they come up with for purely Jedi games - all new territory.

They can be jedi modular encounters....

They need to add something else to the modules. I'm a fan, but I generally never bother with canned adventures, so if they're looking to get my money they need to provide something more than just an adventure.

Plenty of content potential left anyway, we are a long ways off from milking status. Got like 8 career books left, a few sourcebooks that are obvious, some more adventures, lotsa new stuff still to go.

Very much so... but people said the same about WHFRP too, and that ended with much left undone. Granted in that case, it was due to Games Workshop killing off Warhammer Fantasy, rather than anything FFG did.

Hopefully the new movies and things like Rebels will keep Star Wars popular and a viable product for FFG for years (even if they are not to my tastes personally, I appreciate any new content is good for the genre).

And I think whafrog meant 'support' rather than 'milk'.

I knew what W meant, I was more referring to the gimmick thing, shoulda purged W out of it. The point is gimmicks are new ways of moving product and the extra content was specifically developed for those adventures. It's likely it wouldn't have seen the light of day in any other form.

It's a smart way to get my money as I generally don't buy canned adventures ever. I'm a fan, goodness knows they ring me for playtests often enough, but if they want my cash for adventure books there needs to be more than just an adventure. I'm sure they do their customer surveys and get books ranked and decided they needed to step it up with the adventure books.

Mask Of the Pirate queen is the only published FFG star wars adventure appropriate to my party of bounty hunters... I suppose that I could make beyond the rim and jewel of yavin work, the problem is motivating them to take on the job.

SPOILER ALERT

I beg to differ!

Beyond the Rim

Change who hires them: The Empire. All of the ingredients are there for this to work. Just have the lead ISB agent employ them instead of Reom. Their mission: to steal the hyperspace probe from Reom, crack the codes, beat beat the competition to Cholgana, and then capture Cretala and recover any of her surviving research data. Or, they could just take a page from the ISB playbook and planet tracking devices on Reom or the Yiyar Clan's ships (smart, but less interesting). And, of course, at the end, they end up with some really annoyed new rivals / hunters of their own. You could also give them Rebel troubles when they find their delivery - and paycheck - to an ISB black site is smack dab in the middle of an Alliance raid or some such.

Jewel of Yavin

Make a galactic super-thief no one can catch, put a big Black Sun or Hutt bounty on their head, and then give the PCs intelligence that they are going after the Jewel. The Bounty Hunters have to go undercover as potential buyers, follow the adventure, and of course beat the thief to the Jewel because that way the mysterious and legendary heister has to walk into their trap to get it. You can complicate their lives by turning the capture into a moral quandary for some reason (if possible), or by having the PCs realize the hottie they have fallen for is the thief! And, the ISB may prove to be rivals as well because they want the thief for an entirely different reason than the person who hired the PCs does.

It can be done!

I should have been clearer I would have to substantially modify the adventure to make it appropriate, at which point it's no longer a quick and easy "filler" adventure, in which case I am better off making my own "campaign" adventure. Mask of the Pirate queen is the first published adventure that I could use as off the shelf filler.

My online group ran a marathon 8 hr session of a modified Mask of the Pirate Queen. We record all our games and upload them to YouTube. It is a high level campaign (the structure means everyone has different XP amounts but it ranges from 500-2000), so there are probably modifications to difficulty as well as plot things to fit it into the bigger picture.

Here is a link to part 1:

https://youtu.be/bR_TUkFmHwI

I know it only through Rowdyoctopus's actual play, and I am uninspired. Hopefully the setting is as

Whafrog mentioned, good filling for your own story. I like to re-skin most encounter based on the combination of skills and situation.

Technically, I didn't get to play in this one. Perhaps if I did, you would be more inspired

K cool, I just listned.

I should have been clearer I would have to substantially modify the adventure to make it appropriate, at which point it's no longer a quick and easy "filler" adventure, in which case I am better off making my own "campaign" adventure. Mask of the Pirate queen is the first published adventure that I could use as off the shelf filler.

I'm a seat-of-my-pants gamemaster, so our experiences probably vary.

Having read the adventure, it would take about ten minutes to prep the approaches I just described.

I should have been clearer I would have to substantially modify the adventure to make it appropriate, at which point it's no longer a quick and easy "filler" adventure, in which case I am better off making my own "campaign" adventure. Mask of the Pirate queen is the first published adventure that I could use as off the shelf filler.

I'm a seat-of-my-pants gamemaster, so our experiences probably vary.

Having read the adventure, it would take about ten minutes to prep the approaches I just described.

BTW my average session lasts 5 hours, keeping one act out of 3 won't last 5 hours

Generally the quality of my games is directly related to the amount of prep work I put into it, but there is absolutely such a thing as overpreparing in a medium like RPGs where the players can unknowingly leap off your intended path into the wilderness. Time and experience has taught me to prepare scenarios that are broad rather than deep, and to have a range of stock characters and ideas I can pull from as needed.

When it comes to campaigns I'm also very wary about planning too far ahead--in fact, when I started my current campaign I had no idea where it would go outside of a very general idea (Rogues and scoundrels surviving on the edge of the galactic civil war) until I got to know the characters and got a sense of where their hooks would pull them. Even now I only lay down semi-concrete plans for one or two sessions ahead of time, everything else is flexible by necessity.

So far I have a pretty good track record of making accurate predictions where my players will go, largely because i ask my players about where they want their characters' side stories to go and i try to make that happen, with suitable plot twists and details of how/why to be revealed in session. The easist sessions for me to run are heists... those follow a two or three act pattern... first act is planned out in detail, it'seems how they get the info they need to plan the heist or how they find the guy who has what they need and he'll give it to them if they do a heist for them (using the term heist loosely), that gives them an objective and maybe detailed knowledge of the obstacles in their way, I may give them a security feature that circumventing would make the main objective easier if so, circumventing that security feature is the extra act, and then I sit back at let them plan how to complete the main objective after optionally circumventing the security feature. I don't have to plan HOW they can do it, I only have to set the obstacles they face which also sets some of the locations. So far the heist sessions are the ones that my players enjoy most... and they have originated in my players' side stories (I use the term side stories to mean something like obligation on steroids, there's a main plot, and each player has a side story/subplots and i'll incorporate maybe 3 stories/side-stories per session), I never ROLL for whose obligation comes up, it's planned and about 3 obligations/side stories always are planned in... there are 7 characters, formerly 7 players, one dropped out and his character is being run by one of the other players because the side stories are now intertwined and removing the character would cause the tapestry to become unwoven (it's a loose thread so to speak). The main plot is a team of bounty hunters making their way through a criminal underworld of intrigue.

Just finished running it. Because of party alignment, past story, and current events, the last act was 100% different from the book. Beyond that, some thoughts:

Both planets are interesting and ripe for future use.
There are plenty of interesting NPCs.
The story is engaging.
It is thin, but not dangerously so.

I think it is a great little adventure. If you involved the organizations to some degree before the adventure then I think it really opens up story possibilities.